Still holding the gorthling in his left hand, Valorian raised his right hand and fired a bolt of energy at the pack to slow them down. He felt the magic suddenly erupt through him, and to his complete amazement, a fiery burst of brilliant blue, hotter and stronger than anything he had formed before, sizzled through the tunnel air and exploded in the crowded mob of gorthlings. They fled, screaming, into the blackness.
Valorian didn’t waste time wondering how he had found such strength or trying to pry off the gorthling. He clamped his fingers around its neck and sent Hunnul into a canter before the other creatures could regroup. While the stallion moved forward at a fast pace, Valorian used his free hand to slide his gold armband down to his wrist.
The gorthling saw the gold coming and shrieked. It struggled to escape as the clansman’s fingers held it in a merciless grip and forced the golden ring over its small head.
Valorian had suspected that gold had some power over the gorthlings, and he was right. As soon as the armband settled down around the creature’s neck like a collar, the gorthling stilled and hung limply in the man’s hand.
Valorian gave it a gentle shake. “Can you talk?” he demanded.
“Yesss,” it hissed sullenly.
“Where is Amara’s crown?”
The gorthling laughed a sharp, wicked sound. “So! She sent you! What a choice. You worm-spined, offal-tongued son of a cave rat!” Its ugly face twisted into a sneer. “Follow this path and you will find it.”
The clansman tried another question. “Are there other tunnels into Gormoth?”
Again the gorthling laughed and spat at him. “Of course, stupid mortal. There are lots of ways to get in, but you’ll never get out!”
Valorian’s mouth tightened. The little brute was only telling him things he had already guessed. However, during their talk, he had noticed that his sphere was burning much brighter and his strength had returned in full measure. As an experiment, he set the gorthling on the pommel of his saddle.
“Stay there,” he ordered and let go of its neck. Two interesting things happened. First, the gorthling obeyed him, and second, the light dimmed to its previous intensity. Once again Valorian picked up the creature; the sphere brightened.
“Gorthlings have no power of their own to wield magic, do they?” he stated in dawning comprehension.
“Ooooh! The bonehead catches on quick!”
Valorian ignored the gorthling’s insulting words. He was too busy trying to understand the puzzles and possibilities of his captive. “Why not?” he demanded. “The Harbingers can wield magic.”
The gorthling hissed at the mention of the Harbingers. “Those goodie—boys,” it said with a sneer. “Oh, yes! Lord Sorh favors them. He gives them magic; he gives them nags; he lets them go anywhere. But us? His guardians of lost souls? His faithful servants? He says we have no need of magic power. All we get is this prison hole with its fire and winds!”
The clansman pursed his lips, worried. He had seen the fire in the lava river, but where was the wind? “What wind?” he wanted to know.
Abruptly the gorthling burst into laughter that sounded like the howls of a demented child to Valorian. It made the man’s skin crawl. “You’ll see. It’s where all mortals go when they enter Gormoth. Listen and you can hear it now!”
The clansman slowed the stallion to a jog and listened to the darkness. The creature was right. The changes they had noticed earlier had become more apparent. The draft at their backs was growing into a full breeze, the vibration was increasing to a trembling that shook the walls and floor, and both Hunnul and Valorian could hear a distant steady roaring that seemed to originate from somewhere ahead. The gorthling twisted his expression into a rude smile.
Valorian’s apprehension rose in a cold wave, and he asked harshly, “What is that?”
“The wind,” the creature cackled.
Valorian wanted to squeeze the gorthling to pulp, but he didn’t think that would help much. Instead, he asked, “All right, then tell me this—what power does my gold band have over you?”
The gorthling snarled and hissed before it finally answered, “As long as you force me to wear this nasty stuff, I must obey you.”
“Why?”
“Gold is the metal of the gods,” the creature replied fiercely. “Gorthlings must always bow to the sacred gold of the deities. Mortals aren’t supposed to bring it into Gormoth or wield magic. That’s not fair!” it said sulkily.
“Why do you increase my power when you are in contact with me?” the clansman prodded.
“I’m immortal, idiot. Immortals have that effect on mortal filth like you. Not that it will do you much good,” the gorthling chuckled with malice. “There is no escape, and you can’t control us all. We’ll have your soul dumped in the pit before you can spit.”
The clansman made no further comment. Instead, he wrapped his fingers around the gorthling’s neck and stared thoughtfully ahead into the black tunnel while Hunnul jogged down the slope, deeper and deeper into the roots of the vast mountain. Gradually the roaring noise increased, the wind blew harder until it pulled at Hunnul’s mane and tail, and the walls began to shake from the force of some monstrous, unknown power.
The closer they drew to the unknown source of the noise, the more sounds they could discern in the thundering roar. There was gorthling laughter and human sounds, too shrieks and cries and a wailing that never seemed to stop. Valorian felt his soul grow cold. There were no tales in the mortal world that accurately described the innermost secrets of Gormoth. What happened within its dark heart was known only to its tormented prisoners, the gorthlings, and the gods.
Sooner than he wanted, Valorian saw the end of the tunnel. A strange, hot, wavering light gleamed through an arched doorway not far ahead. The deep-throated roaring was now painfully loud. The gorthling snickered.
Hunnul slowed to a hesitating walk, stepped cautiously through the archway, and stopped dead in his tracks. They had entered a tremendous circular cave as large as any mountain in the mortal world. Appalled, Valorian rose in his stirrups and looked down where the trail stopped in a sheer drop-off into a chasm whose bottom was lost in the unfathomable depths of Ealgoden. But it wasn’t the frightening bottomless chasm, the immense size of the cavern, or the disappearance of the trail that transfixed the man; it was what roared in the center of that vast space.
Valorian stared in awe. He had never imagined anything so horrendous. Down below him, in the middle of the great cavern, hung a monstrous, thundering tornado of wind and fire. In the lurid light of its massive form, he could see where the molten rock of the lava river flowed out of an opening in the rock wall below and was sucked and swirled into the tremendous vortex, forming a maelstrom of searing heat and flailing winds that remained fixed in place over a pit of darkness beyond imagination.
Worst of all were the souls Valorian could see trapped in the spinning maw of the giant funnel. There were countless numbers of them, indistinguishable in the fire and violent winds, and they all cried in hopelessness and agony from their prison in a ceaseless, eternal lament that tore at Valorian’s heart.
“There’s the wind, bonehead. Welcome home!” sneered the gorthling. When the man did not reply, it bobbed its head and went on with glee. “Lord Sorh put that there for our prisoners. Once you’re in it, we will never let you go.”
The man ignored it with an effort. Gritting his teeth, he forced .his eyes away from the whirlwind. Instead, he looked up toward the ceiling of the cavern, which was lit by a pale golden glow, and saw something else that made him lean forward with relief. There was the object of his quest at last.
The roof of the vast space was festooned with stalactites of every length and diameter in a startling variety of colors. In the exact center of the ceiling was the largest stalactite: a huge, long spear of stone that hung over the whirlwind like a weapon ready to drop, and there, jammed tightly onto the tip, was a circular object that glowed with a radiance all its own. The clansman didn’t need to ask the gorthling if that object was Amara’s crown—he knew it was. In the hellish winds and burning fires, the crown shimmered with a pure beauty that did not belong in this evil place.